desperately seeking replacement for Avira

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As I am sure many of you know, free (as well as paid) Avira has become useless, and it was my go-to for almost 20 years (at one point I did pay for it, and it was so loaded with garbage that I went back to using the freeware) so I need a new av that is just an av and is completely configurable regarding exclusions, updates and scan scheduling ( I am not even going to start on late lamented software firewalls, but I do not want one included in my av) I am not in a position to test every free av out there since this one little laptop serves for home and work, and none of the free av sites list the features I am looking for, so I am asking here since I got an email about this new wonderful place and decided to jump back in ( what happened to my plus status, btw..)

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GoneToPlaid

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For help with your Plus status, please email CustomerSupport at Askwoody.com for resolution.

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jeg wrote:

so I need a new av that is just an av and is completely configurable regarding exclusions, updates and scan scheduling

Many will point you to Windows build-in and free, Defender.
The best A/Vs are the paid versions of Kaspersky A/V and BitDefender.

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Trev, doriel

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I have been using Webroot ScureAnywhere, around $60 a year, for a number of years and never have had anything to complain about. It is pretty fast at scanning (sends file hashes for inspection to the company servers) and has a good firewall and real-time protection against malware infestation and suspicious file-modifying activity, which is pretty much what can be expected from any decent AV. I have it installed in my Windows PC and in my Mac. Works fine in both. One can also clean the HD or SSD of the garbage left behind from Web browsing, get full system status reports and bleach-delete files with it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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[BigBadSteve]

Windows’ own Windows Defender (which I think is now called Windows Security) works fine for me.

You can enter exclusions for both specific drawers and specific executables, either proactively or after they are detected.

Regular updates are small; they are definitions updates only, not an increasing amount of useless bloatware and adware like you get with many third party virus checker updates.

It runs a quick scan every now and then which you probably won’t even notice until you receive a notification in the tray after the event (I don’t).

And there’s smaller chance of it s****ing up some part of Windows 10 than using a third party program.

Asus N53SM & N53SN 64-bit laptops (Win7 Pro & Win10 Pro 64-bit multiboots), venerable HP Pavilion t760 32-bit desktop (XP & Win7 Pro multiboot), Oracle VirtualBox VM's: XP & Win7 32-bit, XP Mode, aged Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Tab A 2019s (8" & 10.1"), Blu-ray burners, digital cameras, ext. HDDs (latest 5TB!), AnyDVD, Easeus ToDo Backup Home, Waterfox, more. Me: Aussie card-carrying Windows geek.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by BigBadSteve.

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[a]

I use the free windows defender. using wuMgr, I manually take updates for it just about daily. Easy. (I normally manually take the cumulative updates one month later.)(just before patch Tuesday)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by a.

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The only issue with defender is that you must update its defonitions manually weekly if you have wu disabled

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I still get defender def updates w/ wu disabled, it does not show in history but in settings under ‘virus and threat protection updates’ it does

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I highly recommend Panda Free Antivirus as an interim solution until you finally decide on what paid product you want to use. It is an “install it and forget about it” product in terms of ease of use. Here is the direct link:

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en-us/homeusers/free-antivirus/

 

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